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My 90 Days to Fitness

A New Challenge Everyday! (Day 3 Observations)

I started gaining weight when I was five years old and was never able to lose all of it. Some other things have kept me from losing it, such as problems with my knees from the age of nine that made some exercises impossible for me to do, and also the fact that those knee problems have had me unable to do any exercise for six weeks every time they've gotten hurt. It's happened 12 times in total, which means that the weight I gained in those six weeks was even harder to lose because I knew that if I did certain things I would go back to square one in that wheelchair—and I'm stuck with that problem for all of my life.

But I decided that would change. I can't let my knees control my health anymore.

This week I started seven fitness challenges all at once; of course, they aren't as intense as some I have seen on professional trainers' blogs, but I feel like they will have an effect. I am currently on day three out of 90 and I already feel a bit better, though mostly psychologically.

In only three days, I was able to understand what people mean when they say that exercise is good for both the body and the mind. The effects on the body are quite easy to understand as they are the first thing to pop up in our minds when we're asked what are the positive effects of exercise.

So let me explain what I found out in my first three days of my fitness journey.

First of all, here's a list of the challenges that I'm taking:

30-day squat challenge (but I added dumbbells to the mix)

30-day push up challenge

30-day plank challenge

30-day crunches challenge (also added dumbbells to it)

12-week beginner weight loss challenge (which is very vague because it doesn't detail the exercises like the other ones, it just says "Wednesday: upper body workout, Thursday: 20 to 30 minutes cardio," etc.)

30-day bench dip challenge (I created it myself because I wanted to add this exercise to the mix)

and a weird "spell your name and that's your workout" challenge, but instead of using my name, each day I find a word related to weight loss and fitness and I use the letters to find what workout I'll do.

The only challenge that I like a little less than the others is the 12-week beginner weight loss challenge because of the way the challenge is set up. Basically, I feel like it's too large and lacks structure. To give you an example, it only says that Monday is core workout day... alright, but how long should I workout for? What exercises do you propose? I could go and do 20 crunches and then say, "Alright, it's done," and then move on so I feel like there's really a bit too much freedom with this one, so it's hard to keep up with it.

I found that staying consistent and motivated gets easier for me when the bar is high because then I can see the progress. I'm someone who wants to see progress as soon as I start, but seeing that I can do so much in just one hour and stick to it is really helping me to not be discouraged by the lack of change in my weight or my appearance in the beginning.

I also found that it increased my self-esteem quite a lot because being able to do seven fitness challenges per day and even being able to add some more exercises to that makes me feel like I can do anything. It makes me feel like I'm finally worth something, like I'm special somehow because I work so hard for something I want more than anything else.

Of course, some people go at it even harder than me, but I recently realized that you do not have to work yourself to the brink of death for it to have an effect. And you don't have to follow other people's fitness journey to the letter, and even if you do, you might not get the same result as they did, it might even not work for you at all. So that's why I decided to just look around on google to find all of those images I kept seeing everywhere on the internet about random fitness challenges.

I chose seven out of those and adapted them to meet my needs, my limitations and my level of fitness. To give you an example, I have knee problems and it keeps me from doing extensive leg exercises or high impact exercises like burpees or even jumping jacks, so instead of doing those kinds of things, I chose to put more effort into my core and my upper body when I workout while still doing some leg exercises that I know will not cause harm to me.

Duration of the Challenges

Because most of those challenges last 30 days, but only one lasts for 90, I've decided that I will repeat those 30-day challenges until I reach the 90-day mark, and then see where to go from there.

As I said, I am only on day three, but I am very hopeful that doing this everyday will have a positive impact on my general health. I will also provide updates on how it's going, and the progress that I'm getting at the end of every 30-day period.

Thank you for taking the time to read all of that and if you would like to read more, please contact me!